in the cell-binds of war
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: War has a way of dragging to the front what peace can never manage.
1. their shared coffin

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #002 - titanium.

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 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _1\. their shared coffin_

They're trapped in a coffin but the dirt's still spraying around them: dirt that's the waves they slice through and thrash upon. They're completely outclassed and it's not fair. They're outclassed because they've grabbed the first machine they can reach, because they couldn't take the risk for trying for something better, something that would protect them now…

But even though they're wrapped in a cocoon made of paper and their pursuers are armed with scissors and swords that are completely overkill, and they've only got paperclips with which to fight. It's a testament to Athrun's skill and experience that he's holding out with said paperclips…but he can't last forever. Everything burns under the flames of hell eventually and the only paradise is the freedom that comes with death and leaves rage and tears behind –

She can still see Shinn, red and seething after Stella's demise. He can see it in that monster he's wielding now, shutting out Athrun's screaming voice – Athrun, who Shinn has always respected even if he didn't always show it…

And now Shinn's going to hammer the nail in their coffin and the water will swallow them. The cockpit is even more claustrophobic than before because there's no-where to run. The Zaku they're in can't possibly outstrip the new models.

They're dead. They're together, sharing a coffin, but they're still dead.

Athrun lets go of the controls and grasps her hands. She closes her eyes and hangs on. At least…at least there's something to hold on to – before the frame is ripped apart and the sea snatches them both and their coffin and smashes it all apart.


	2. her crown

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #033 - fake.

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 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _2\. her crown_

She's not in the high-ranking chains of ZAFT or a Faith member, but she's an Intelligence officer and it doesn't take her long to thumb out a solution when presented with a puzzle.

Of course, most of her puzzles are of the war variety. It can't be helped, when both she and her sister are in the military – and, after a while, it's even more mainstream when they're assigned to the Minerva for its maiden voyage…and swept into the chaos that follows it.

Granted, she's pretty much on the ship the whole time. It's Luna and the other pilots who have to sortie out into unpredictable battles when she offers smatterings of guidance from the ship.

Probably her greatest contribution is helping Athrun escape.

And that's a pity, because it shows how corrupt the world is, higher up. It shows that they can fight their best on the battlefield but there don't know everything and there's another battle behind the scenes that makes them puppets on a string.

She's not sure why it's Athrun, trapped in her hotel room, that makes her move. Why it's not when Luna gets hurt, for example, or when Heines dies, or during the whole heartbreaking fiasco with Shinn and Stella. But she is. And it winds up being her crowning achievement in ZAFT – because after that, she's shot down – then brought back from the brink of death and unofficially drafted into the Archangel instead.


	3. firelights outside the glass

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #031 - battleground.

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 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _3\. firelights outside the glass_

She's not the one on the front lines. She sees the firelight from behind the glass of the ship and it's not only her. There's the captain too, and the pilot, and much of the crew. It's her sister out there. And Shun and Ray and Athrun too. And all she does is provide support from the sidelines. Send out bits of Shun's machine when he needs them. Let them know when they're leaving the combat zone, or firing so they can avoid friendly shots. Little things like that.

But that's enough to give her nightmares sometimes. Especially when Luna comes back all bloody…and Athrun too.

Is she a bad sister, thinking about both of them, not having her attention solely on her injured sister?

But Luna asks after Athrun too. She's also worried. And Athrun is… Well, she hasn't seen him, and that makes her worried to.

But when she can't sleep at night and stares out the glass again, this time at the quiet black, Athrun is there as well. Staring silently, and with such a melancholic expression she can't help but freeze in her place so as not to disturb him.

He's thinking of those firelights too, she realises. But she wonders how different they'd look from the cockpit.

She's an intelligence officer. She's never sat in a cockpit and unless they need to evacuate valuable information, she probably never will. Her clearance isn't that high anyway. It's fairly high. She's on the Minerva after all. But not good enough for pirates or Orb or the Earth Federation Forces…

The view from the ship must be very different from the cockpit, but she can't ask Athrun. Not while he wears that face.

Maybe she'll ask Luna…one day.


	4. passing the ring

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #007 - complicated.

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 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _4\. passing the ring_

Cagali stares at her and she can't help but feel her face grow warm at the scrutiny – but she really can't help it!

She should. She knows she should. She remembers the ring Cagali wore around her neck, and the way Athrun hovers over her, never far from her side – but then they're gone, whisked away into space and then Athrun is with them instead of with Cagali and it's so easy to forget in the wide expanse of space that there's someone waiting for him, that he's off limits, that she shouldn't be dreaming even when it's the right of a human to dream…

But not when they hurt others, and she can see that echo of sadness in Cagali's eyes. And why not? After all, they – the Minerva crew, then the Archangel crew – have spent far more time with Athrun than she has of late and they are being pulled apart yet again…

But then Cagali seems to steel herself and mouth: "take care of him" and Meyrin can't help but marvel at that woman's strength for telling another woman to care for the man she loves –

Or maybe it isn't strength at all, because she sees him slip the ring off entirely, and maybe there's another message in there – or she's reading an opportunity where one doesn't exist.


	5. bleak in the wake of grief

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #027 - prophecy.

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 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _5\. bleak in the wake of grief_

Shinn cries over Stella.

Athrun and Meyrin watch from different vantage points.

Athrun thinks of Cagali. And he thinks of Kira. And what almost had been.

Meyrin thinks of Lunamaria. And their other pilots…including Athrun. And she thinks of their maiden voyage, when Athrun dove into a damaged machine far below his capabalities and still gave a stellar performance with it –

And maybe it isn't the time for puns, but that one just slips into being by itself.

Shinn cries over Stella and his eyes burn for revenge.

Athrun watches him and thinks about himself, when he'd been consumed by the same sort of bloodlust and how he'd killed Tolle Koenig for it and how the hatred he'd deserved had been thrown in Dearka's face instead… Poor Dearka, who'd chosen the worst possible time to become a prisoner of the Archangel but had survived it nonetheless, because Miriallia Haw had an inner strength no-one had thought she'd possessed.

And Meyrin drifted from one pilot to another and found Athrun again and wondered what that melancholic expression in his eyes could mean. Wondered if he was seeing something different to them, something deeper – if he was somehow seeing a prediction of the future or a reflection of the past… And that look made her a little fearful of said future because the look in his eyes was so bleak…

And that spelt a bleak future in the wake of Shinn's grief…and his anger.


	6. behind the name is their destiny

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #023 - mythology.

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 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _6: behind the name is their destiny_

Meyrin is a relatively normal name, when compared to Lunamaria: the angel of the sea. But Lunamaria flies up into space instead, on the Minerva and there's a goddess' name.

Meyrin is a quick-thinking and clever name, so maybe that's why she's tumbled into intelligence instead of taking flight like her sister with the angel name. And when she learns of the destiny plan, she wonders if parts of it hadn't been in play from even then.

Athrun… Athrun is a diligent and hardworking name and its namesake is certainly that. It also means dawn and that's a lovely image, the dawn at the end of a long night, a long war – the saviour, in other words, but he's not really that, is he? she thinks. He's a fighter, yes. And a hero. But he's the dusk that sharpens every star and blackens the clouds in the background while the sun surges forth to that daybreak –

And if he's the dusk, then Lacus Clyne is the dawn.

And true dawns burn through the false ones in the sky.

They watch the live broadcast. Athrun's eyes burn.

And true dusk strikes the lies down.


	7. adoring fans for a war veteran

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #009 - adoring.

* * *

 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _7: adoring fans for a war veteran_

They're all afraid. This is their first real war and they've pretty much been bumping along until Athrun comes. Athrun, aside from the captain, is the only one with any real experience. Shinn likes to stand on his own two feet, but even he can see the difference between their maiden voyage and a veteran.

Even if Athrun wants to stay off the battlefield, at first.

But he goes. And they see his fighting and they're in awe after it. The pilots chase him after that and his time is suddenly swamped. Between them and the superiors and Cagali who's his ward and so much more, the other members of staff see little of Athrun at all.

Meyrin likes his presence on the ship anyway. He'll teach her sister a little something, and the others too. Something that'll mean they're more likely to come back from their battles, and come back with less damages too. Something that means they can sleep a little easier in their beds, and glow a little more during their downtime…

But then she gets to know him better, afterwards, and realises he sleeps far worse and glows far less than those who are less well-acquainted with the battlefield.


	8. the things they don't talk about

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #047 - die.

* * *

 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _8:the things they don't talk about_

Athrun doesn't talk much, about his first war. None of them do, really, but Athrun's first war is different from theirs so things are slightly different. Luna and Shinn in particular burn with curiosity, but Luna at least know when to hold her tongue.

It helps that Meyrin knows even better, and she's sure to jump in if Luna slips up. Shinn on the other hand is as blunt as ever and sometimes too many shadows flicker on Athrun's face.

Sometimes, they bump into Kira and Lacus, or just Kira captioning the Songtress' ship, and it's the same thing. A war they don't talk about…or maybe Athrun and Kira do talk about it behind closed doors where the rest of them can't hear because they do seem a little lighter afterwards, but a little heavier too.

Shinn has the same look when he sees Luna after a while, and Meyrin the same with Athrun.

It's the feeling of relief when knowing you've made it through the same war together.

But also the sadness when you remember all the people that were once beside you that didn't.


	9. the role of questioning

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #015 - Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _9: the role of questioning_

Meyrin doesn't see it.

Athrun tells her the whole story, in halting pieces, but she still doesn't see it. Doesn't see what's wrong with having an opinion about something, particularly as a FAITH member where that opinion is respected and valued and given power and freedom.

And she doesn't understand why weave such a cruel web to trap someone so plainly honest like him. Someone who isn't frank, perhaps, but he's honest nonetheless and why…

Then again, why create a fake Lacus Clyne?

But that question is far easier to answer now. Because the real one would never have agreed with this Destiny plan. The woman who advocates for freedom for all would never accept a peace that means wiping out free will.

Meyrin, now that she can see such depth, can never accept it too.

Maybe she never could accept it. She's always been an investigator, after all. Her role is to search, and question. What use is that in the new world Durandell plans. And maybe that's a selfish reason but what use are pilots too, and the military, and politicians and pretty much all the people she's ever known, growing up in a military facility and entering pre-military academy at an early age.

And aside from the orphans on the island in Orb, it may be all the people Athrun knows as well, redundant in this new planned world.


	10. swept here by the tides

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #028 - circle.

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 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _10\. swept here by the tides_

Athrun found most of his life wound up being dictated for him.

Even now, maybe, he was just under the illusion he had a choice. Like he'd been in ZAFT this second time around. With a FAITH badge on his uniform that had meant nothing in the end and the uniform itself had almost seen him drowned in the cockpit of a Zaku with someone who should never have been involved.

Of all the rooms he could have dove into for cover, how had he wound up in one of the Minerva crew's? And worse, someone who would jump to help him without a second thought and who could get him away from here without a fight breaking out.

If Shinn and Rey hadn't been so sharp, she could have gotten him off the Plants entirely, and she'd been branded a traitor either way.

But she was smiling now, on the bridge of the Archangel, even though she was worried about her sister, and worried about her friends.

And he, he was just wondering if he had a choice or he'd been swept here by the tides again.


	11. falling apart and coming together

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #011 - marriage.

* * *

 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _11\. falling apart and coming together_

Athrun isn't part of gate-crashing the wedding.

He hears about it afterwards. That his fiancé was getting married to someone else and then gets kidnapped by her own brother and no-one bothers to tell him a word.

Everyone walks in eggshells around him for a bit after that.

But then it starts to sink in. all that time he spent as Alex Dino, standing in the shadows. All that time hiding while Cagalli is in the sun, doing what she's meant to do, what she's best at. He's a fighter and he can be a good bodyguard but he's too well known for that. He's a better soldier. A better commander, now that he's gotten the hang of that little gig. But he's best as a freelance fighter, where he can fight for what he believes and not be tied down by orders and Cagalli covets a world of peace where people like him aren't necessary anymore and all that points to him and Cagalli being about as good a match as he and Lacus were.

And the next time they're in Orb affirms that. Cagalli's not wearing her ring. They part with smiles like good friends and that's all they are, and she whispers in Meyrin's ear as they leave and makes her blush.

Maybe he wouldn't have considered it at that time if not for that. But Cagalli is rarely subtle.


	12. heroes and teaching lessons

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #034 - guard.

* * *

 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _12\. heroes and teaching lessons_

When it's on the Minerva, the pilots have Athrun's attention because he's a pilot too and their hero. But he talks as much as he dares to everyone. Helps them train when they can and all their marksmanship improves in leaps and bounds because the crew of the Minerva is still less than a class at the academy and Athrun is a patient (if sometimes distant) teacher.

But when they're aboard the Archangel, it's Meyrin who's teaching the others because not all of them have a military background and Kira Yamato doesn't even remember to make sure the safety's off before he aims a gun.

She can't help but laugh when she first sees. And the second time. And when Athrun is with her the third time, he laughs as well.

And maybe it's a sign of their teamwork where individual efforts have failed, or coincidence or just the timing, but that third lesson is what finally breaks his habit because the safety is off the next time one of them bump into him at the shooting range.

And Athrun is as happy as Kira is, because that means his friend can watch his own back just a little bit better, and Meyrin is happy she's played a part in that as well.


	13. ocean coffin

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #041 - lantern.

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 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _13\. ocean coffin_

Under the water, it's all dark and numb. Athrun feels around for something: Meyrin's hand, even a piece of the GOUF, but there's only water that touches every part of him and chokes every crevice. He tries to swim a stroke but he can't. Pain splits his awareness and his mind and maybe it's a wound that could split his body as well. After all, the Destiny pierced their GOUF in the chest. It could easily have skewered one or both of them as well.

And where was Meyrin, amidst the gloom? It was his fault she was even here. His fault, and now they were drowning somewhere and how would they survive? Even if they reach the surface, Rey and Shinn would be fools to not be waiting to make sure. They'd be fools not to check.

There was no escape from an ocean coffin. That light that was slowly swimming into view was the tunnel into the afterlife and nothing more.


	14. follow what you believe

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, g2 - write a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words. This drabble is also written for the OTP and OT3 Boot-Camp Challenge, #014 - defective.

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 **in the cell-binds of war  
** _14\. following what you believe_

It feels like an age since she'd seen Lunamaria and there she was, on the battlefield. And yet they were on different sides now. The Minerva and the Eternal. Chairman Durandel and Orb.

It shouldn't have been that way. It shouldn't ever have been that way. ZAFT wasn't wrong. Orb wasn't wrong. Meyrin wasn't wrong. Lunamaria wasn't wrong. Even Shinn when he'd struck them down over the ocean wasn't wrong. It was just the Destiny Plan, snatching their freedom away. The ones who wanted peace weren't wrong. The ones who wanted freedom also weren't wrong.

But they were on opposite sides and now Luna was aiming at them. And she had to stop him because the pilots were all engaged elsewhere – Athrun against Shinn and Kira against Rey and they were the best.

She had to stop Lunamaria herself. With the only way she could. Her voice.

So she called out to her from the Eternal. Watched as the Impulse stopped short. Listened as Luna breathlessly repeats her name.

But then it twists. Of course it twists. Athrun is still branded a traitor and it's only because they're sisters and know each other so well that Luna doesn't believe she's one as well. But she believes he's tricked her and that's almost as bad. Almost, but not quite because now Luna knows there's someone on the Eternal she can't destroy, no matter now clouded she thinks their eyes are.

But Meyrin knows her eyes aren't clouded. Athrun didn't trick her. She chose to help him and follow him because she thought he was right, and now she's doing the same with the Eternal.


End file.
